Yemen’s Houthis (Ansarallah) have detained more than 40 media staff, press watchdogs said Wednesday (December 6th), demanding their immediate release, AFP reported.
They include staff of Yemen Today -- a television channel affiliated with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, killed Monday by the Houthis, the watchdogs said.
The Houthis overran the television station's Sanaa offices on Saturday after attacking it with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and wounding three guards, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said.
"This hostage-taking is typical of the climate of hostility in Yemen towards journalists, who are often targeted in this conflict," said RSF's Alexandra El Khazen.
A spokesman for the Committee to Protect Journalists called for the immediate release of the journalists, saying the attack on Yemen Today "shows a profound contempt for press freedom".
A General People's Congress official said some of the detained staff had since been transferred to prison, while others were still being held in the television station's offices.
"The Houthis were exerting pressure on them to change their coverage, to issue certain statements and report the betrayal of former president Saleh and accuse him of working for the Arab coalition," he said. "But the journalists refused to do it."
The Sanaa-based national syndicate of journalists said the Houthis were posting the names of employees of media they regarded as hostile at checkpoints around Sanaa, and demanded "an end to abuses".
